BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF THE TOUR D’ORDRE OF BOULOGNE.
(From an old drawing by Claude Châtillon.)
There are little, if any, remains now extant of this ancient monument, more glorious from the services which for generations it rendered to humanity than from its origin, which only recalled the extravagance and insane ostentation of Caligula; and M. Egger advises us to be cautious how we place our confidence in the representations which have been given of it. The most trustworthy seems to be the drawing executed by Claude Châtillon, engineer to Henry IV., which we here reproduce.
The descriptions which are on record, says M. Renard, are equally unsatisfactory. Still we can pick out of their rhodomontade some few valuable and accurate particulars of its situation, dimensions, and form, and of the materials employed in its construction. These were simply gray and yellow stones, and red bricks, so arranged as to compose an edifice of great solidity and yet of attractive appearance. The tower was situated some two or three hundred yards from the brink of the cliff; it was octagonal; 192 feet in circumference, and about 64 feet in diameter: as with most of the Roman pharoses, each of its twelve stories was a foot and a half narrower than the story immediately below it, so that it assumed, on the whole, a pyramidal shape. We are told that its height was about equal to its circumference, or, in round numbers, 200 feet—which seems, as Egger remarks, an extraordinary elevation for a lighthouse, already situated on a cliff 100 feet above the sea-level. According to M. J. F. Henry, its height was about 124 feet. However this may be, each story had on the south side an opening like a gate. As late as the beginning of the seventeenth century there might still be seen three vaulted chambers, one above the other, connected by an inner flight of stairs, and probably intended for the lodging of the keepers.
As for the place where the fire or light was kindled, we are entirely left to conjecture; but from the fact that the chroniclers of the ninth century assert that the summit was repaired with a view to prepare it for the signal-fires, there seems reason to believe that before this restoration they were kindled in a chamber on the uppermost story.
M. Egger puts forward the supposition that carefully directed excavations might lead to the discovery of important remains. And looking to the arguments by which he supports his hypothesis, we are disposed to accept it as very plausible. It is to be regretted that France possesses no archæological associations to undertake the superintendence and prosecute the study of her memorials of antiquity. With all her passion for national aggrandizement, she proves herself strangely neglectful of her past, and the educated classes of France exhibit little of that interest in archæological and antiquarian pursuits which is shown by the scholars and gentry of England. Yet on every ground it is desirable that a nation’s past should never be divorced from its present; that the continuity of national life should, as far as possible, be preserved unbroken; and much may be done for the furtherance of so desirable an object by a due regard to the monuments erected by our forefathers.
The Commission des Phares has raised, however, in the place of the Tour d’Ordre, a worthy substitute. In 1835 it established at Boulogne a red light, fixed, and two other fixed lights, the first of which shed its radiance for four, and the second and third for nine miles; ample illumination this for a portion of the French coast which is already lighted, at Cape Grisnez, by a powerful apparatus, whose lustre extends as far as twenty-two miles, and at Pointe d’Alpreck, by a lighthouse visible for twelve miles.
